NHS staff urged to get flu jab

NHS staff tasked with reminding patients to have the flu jab are failing to receive the vaccination themselves - with some believing it could make them ill, health experts have said.

PUBLISHED: 16:00, Thu, Sep 22, 2011

Just over a third of health care workers in England had the flu jab last year, official figures show [PA]

NHS staff tasked with reminding patients to have the flu jab are failing to receive the vaccination themselves - with some believing it could make them ill, health experts have said.

Just over a third of healthcare workers in England, 37.4%, had the vaccine last year. The figure the previous winter was 26.4%.

Professor David Salisbury, the Government's director of immunisation, said: "I find it quite a dilemma that they will give advice to their patients about being vaccinated but will not be protected themselves."

His comments come as the national flu vaccination programme is launched, alongside an awareness drive specifically targeting NHS staff for the first time. The NHS Employers organisation said they wanted administration of the seasonal flu jab to become "as commonplace in the NHS as washing your hands".

Asked for the reasons behind the low numbers of medical staff having the jab, Professor Salisbury said: "I think it's everything. They don't think it's important for them.

"They even think it can give them flu - we still pick up messages from health care workers that they think it can give them flu."

Others say they do not have time for the jab, or think it's not available to them.

Professor Salisbury added: "It's a whole basket of different reasons and it's a shame, because they are people with great influence and they are trusted and believed."

Chief medical officer Dame Professor Sally Davies echoed the concerns about GPs and other medical staff not being protected, and said that such an attitude was "selfish".

Referring to the 37.4% figure, she said: "I worry about that. I hope that it will be higher this year - I expect it will be higher this year. It is clearly available to them, so maybe we haven't made clear enough the advantages to their patients, in previous years. I think we have made it amply clear this year."